


Achilles in the Trenches

by orphan_account



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: AU- alternate ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Concussions, Episode: s03e08 Malfunction (9-1-1 TV), Gen, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, eddie's street fighting but consequences, excessive use of WW1 poetry, his face gets broke, there's some violence but not a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24237436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "911, what's your emergency?""Yeah, there was, uh, a fight, and this guy's unconscious, there's so much blood."Eddie's street fighting gets out of control, and the 118 responds to the call.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Pre-Relationship - Relationship
Comments: 15
Kudos: 251





	Achilles in the Trenches

* * *

_I saw a man this morning_

_who did not wish to die_

_I ask, and cannot answer,_

_if otherwise wish I._

* * *

_He’s moving too slow_ , Eddie thinks, in between dodging punches. Way too slow, as he can’t move in time, and the barely-taped knuckles graze his jaw. 

In his defense, it hasn’t been an easy week. Chris has had nightmares three nights in a row. Eddie hasn’t been sleeping, unable to stop himself from waking up every few hours to stumble, breath caught in his throat, to his son’s room, and lean heavily against the doorway to just watch his chest rise and fall. 

The crowd screams hoarsely in Eddie’s ears, and he gets a quick hit in the guy’s stomach. He doubles over in pain, and Eddie roughly wipes at his eyes, trying to get the sweat out. 

Buck returned to work this week. For all of his 6’3, 200 lb, hulking frame, he had done a good job of making himself small, slight limp as he carried groceries up the stairs. He had glanced nervously at Eddie when he walked in, all big blue eyes and carefully styled blonde hair, and obvious need to be accepted again, and Eddie had kept his eyes trained steadily ahead. 

Eddie overheard him talking to Hen, and anger flared in his stomach, hot and red. 

A lawsuit. That was what his friendship with Buck was worth, apparently. A lawsuit.

Eddie has been getting sick of explaining to Chris that he can't talk to his Bucky. Really fucking sick of it. 

A blow catches him by surprise in his plexus, and Eddie lets out a choked gasp, eyes roaming up. Lena’s sitting on the balcony, legs dangling off. She raises her beer at him, eyebrows raised, and that distracts Eddie.

For just a moment too long. 

A fist is heading directly for his nose, and by the time it lands fully, crushing nerve and bone and sinew, Eddie’s already gone. 

* * *

Buck feels like he’s _too much,_ a lot of the time. _Too much of what,_ Frank had prodded once, and Buck had shrugged, laughed uncomfortably, picked at the couch. 

Too needy. Too clingy. Too thoughtless. Too reckless. 

Too much. 

Eddie, apparently, thought so too. Buck knew he was angry, had figured out that much. But to see his best friend’s grip tightening around the handle of the shopping cart, like he was trying to stop himself from lunging across the aisle at him, had hurt him in ways he didn’t even realize he could still be hurt. 

What was even worse was how he snarled out “You’re exhausting,” and continued on ranting like he hadn’t immediately jumped to Buck’s biggest insecurity, like he hadn’t known where the chink in his armor was, hadn’t located it, and wasn’t already shoving a knife in deep, and twisting. 

Things had gotten a little better. 

He’d been reinstated. Hen was talking to him, at least. Chim, too. Eddie, only to make snarky comments or shoulder past him. 

But you know, for all things that Buck was too much of, _stubborn_ was on that list. 

He tried. Day after day. He tried apologizing. Texting. He even wrote a fucking letter at one point. 

Nothing stuck. 

Eddie would set his jaw, look right past him, like he didn’t exist. Maybe he never did.

And then Eddie started acting weird. Not just to Buck, but Hen and Chim as well. He started coming into shifts with his head down, holding himself oddly, bruising that didn’t add up with his stories. Black eyes, massive scrapes down his elbows. 

  
Buck couldn’t figure it out. Chris wasn’t really a “roughhouse” type kid, and even if he was, that wouldn’t explain the bruising on Eddie’s temple. 

But Eddie wouldn’t talk to him. 

So Buck sucked it up, did his job, and tried to only glance at Eddie a few times an hour instead of every other minute. 

It’s been a tough day. He’d overlapped six hours of his shift with Eddie’s, and apparently, that was six hours too much for him. He hadn’t said a word to Buck, except in direct orders and requests for help on scenes.

Buck sits silent in the truck, on the way to their hopefully last call before he can go home and collapse into bed. He grips the handle on the door white-knuckled. A fight on the outskirts of town, a ring, it sounds like.

One of the first calls he’d ever done with Eddie was to a warehouse on the edge of their district. An underground ring. Someone had caught a hit to the head, and it had done just the right amount of damage. 

They’d pronounced him dead at the scene. 

The truck stops suddenly, and Buck starts, shaking himself slightly, and hops out of the truck. 

He hauls his gear over his shoulder and follows Chim and Hen into the warehouse, rolling his eyes at the hordes of people running out, clearly drunk. 

A makeshift ring is set up in the middle of the room, just barely padded flooring and some fencing around it. Buck winces involuntarily. Sparring on that would hurt like a motherfucker. 

From behind, he can see someone propped up on the side, legs sticking out, utterly still. He turns to Chim to ask if he should just go help Bobby outside- it’s only one person, and Chim and Hen are vastly more medically qualified than he is, Buck would just be a nuisance- and finds him standing stock-still, staring ahead with an open mouth . 

“Holy mother of God,” Hen breathes. She pulls Chim forward, and breaks into a run towards the ring. “Eddie-” 

“Eddie?” 

Buck looks around confusedly. Eddie had gotten off hours ago, stalked out of the firehouse without so much as a glance backwards. 

Chim ducks into the ring, and kneels in front of the man slumped forward with a look of urgency that didn’t seem to match the situation. There’s a tattoo surrounding the man’s forearm. A simple line, dark on olive skin. Buck trails his eyes down to find black shorts with ARMY emblazoned at the bottom in yellow. 

Eddie had been wearing a pair just like those when he left. 

Buck can feel himself moving on autopilot, ducking into the ring behind Chim. The man’s beat to hell, unconscious, head rolled back. Old bruising intermingled with fresh injuries, a garish patchwork. A cut is bleeding sluggishly on his forehead, matting down the dark, fine hair. His nose is bent out of shape, like one of Christopher’s pipe cleaner projects, and is swollen to double its normal size. 

The blood. The blood is streaming from both nostrils, down over his lips, dripping onto his bare chest. A clear fluid is mixed in, dripping with the red every so often. 

“Eddie.” Buck chokes out. 

He stumbles backwards, watching, unable to move, as Hen picks up something white from the ground. 

“This is a piece of his nose. Someone knew to clear it.” She says slowly. “And that’s-” 

“Cerebrospinal fluid.” Chim confirms. “We need to go.” 

Hen nods, lips tight, and places the white piece in a little baggie. She holds it up, and Buck realizes, all at once, that it was bone. 

Bone. From Eddie’s skull. 

He’s going to throw up. 

“-Two, one,” Hen grunts, and they lifted the gurney up. Eddie’s hand rolls off the side, lifeless, and Buck resists the sudden urge to hold it tight, in favor of helping to pick up the gurney from the ring and place it on solid ground. 

Outside, Chim and Hen make quick work of loading him up, speaking to Bobby in low tones that Buck, leaning against the rig, can’t hear. He’s not sure he wants to hear. Bobby nods curtly, and Hen gives Buck one last look before she shuts the bay doors and they speed off towards the hospital. 

Bobby comes over and stands next to him, arms crossed. 

Buck is silent. 

Street fighting. Eddie’s been street fighting. Something is swirling in his stomach, something like rage and anxiety and anger and pain, something like, _I didn’t notice_ , and _how long has this been going on?_ and _how could he do this to Chris._

“Did you,” Bobby starts tightly. It’s the first words he’s spoken to Buck all day, save for the chore list. “Did you know?” 

Buck lets out a mirthless laugh. 

“D-did I know?” He asks, turning to face him. “Are you asking me if I knew if my best friend was risking his life doing stupid shit, and I didn’t do anything to stop him?” 

“Buck-” 

Buck paces away, hands in his hair. The only image recurring in his mind is the blood on his chest, the blood. 

“I didn’t know _shit.”_ Buck snarls. “He didn’t tell me anything.” 

“He didn’t tell us either.” Bobby has one hand out, trying to calm him down. “I saw that something was wrong, but I didn’t put the pieces together. He didn’t tell anyone.” 

Buck lets his head hang, and he’s so goddamn angry, at himself, at Eddie, at the world. 

Bobby looks like he’s going to try and comfort him. Buck takes two steps away. He desperately wants it, and he deserves none of it. 

  
“What did Hen say?” He asks roughly. Bobby sighs.

“Buck, he’s-” 

_“What did Hen say?”_

“It’s bad.” Bobby admits. “I think we got here in time, but his stats aren’t good. At best, they’re at least going to have to reconstruct his nose, but we don’t know how much blood ended up in his stomach or his airways, and he’s got fluid leaking from his spinal cord. It’s bad. Someone needs to call his grandmother.” 

Buck lets out a hoarse sob, and closes in on himself, and doesn’t fight Bobby when his arms circle around his shoulders. 

* * *

The first thing Eddie is aware of is the deep, permeating ache in the center of his face, from his jaw up to his eyes. Oh god, this must be the sinus infection from hell. He groans and tries to move, finds his limbs are made of lead. 

  
“Mr. Diaz, sir, can you hear me?” 

Eddie groans again. The noise is reverberating off his brow bone and into his face. 

He tries to open his eyes. It’s painful, they’re swollen nearly shut, but he can get one open, and finds someone he doesn’t recognize swimming in his vision. Someone in scrubs. 

Oh, god. 

“Wha- happen’d?” He mumbles out. It’s oddly garbled, nasally. He raises a hand clumsily and finds gauze. Gauze packed into his nose, wrapping his face. What the fuck? 

“You’ve had reconstructive surgery, Mr. Diaz, I’m going to have to ask you to not touch the dressing.” The nurse says, and gently takes his hand down. 

“Hurts.”

“Go ahead and press the morphine clicker, that will help with the pain.” 

Eddie is intimately familiar with the morphine clicker, considers it a close friend, and sighs contentedly as the IV machine beeps, and something warm moves through his veins. 

He turns his head and finds someone slumped asleep on a chair besides him- blonde hair, birthmark like a black eye, uniform. 

“Buck.” He mumbles, but Buck doesn’t stir, and the warmth has reached his head, so Eddie closes his eyes and drifts off. 

* * *

The second time he wakes up is a lot less gradual. 

A twisting, churning feeling is expanding in his stomach, and Eddie can barely gasp before a nurse is shoving a bin under his mouth and he’s throwing up everything he didn’t know he had in his stomach. 

Tears sting his eyes involuntarily as he struggles to get in air in between a packed nose and a throat only intent on regurgitating his dinner. 

  
“Okay, Mr. Diaz, hold on, “ The nurse soothes. “I’m going to put in an order for an antiemetic, hold on-” 

But Eddie can’t hold on, because every time he gags, his face screams in pain, and blood pools in the gauze under his nose and he swears something’s breaking, it has to be, from the searing stabbing taking up his entire consciousness. 

It subsides, eventually, and the nurse wipes off his face, changes his dressings, checks the stitching, switches out his pain meds to something a little easier on the stomach, and clicks it for him. Eddie lays back heavily as they finally take effect, and turns to the side. 

The chair’s empty. There’s just a hoodie over the edge. Maybe no one was there at all. 

Tears are welling up in his eyes again, but Eddie can’t figure out why, this time, so he willingly gives in to the black encroaching on his field of vision until he’s gone. 

* * *

After another day of drifting in and out, vaguely registering being taken for scans and procedures and his doctors talking to him, Eddie is, unfortunately, awake for good. 

Which means it’s open season on Eddie Diaz, and the 118 has a non-refundable hunting license. 

“ _Diaz-_ " Hen yells, the door to his room slamming open. She’s still in uniform, must have come straight off her shift, and she’s looking particularly murderous. “Street fighting?” 

Eddie winces, one hand to his eyes to shield them. He knows his nose is broken, but that’s the closest he’s gotten to asking about his injuries, so he’s not sure why his head is throbbing so painfully. 

“Coping mechanism?” He tries thickly. He’s still learning how to talk without the ability to breathe through his nose. 

“A shitty one.” Hen says, arms crossed. “You know what your O2 sat was when we picked you up?” 

“Do I want to know?” 

“73, Diaz.” 

Eddie flinches. 

“I have been feeling pretty oxygen-deprived lately.” He says. It’s not really a joke. 

Hen seems to deflate, if by a few percentage points. 

“Yeah,” she says heavily. She sits down on the chair next to him. “You ever think about Chris in that ring?” 

Eddie goes silent. As far as his son thinks, he got hurt at work and just has to spend a few days in the hospital. Of course he thought about him. He thinks about Chris every minute of every day. 

“It was a mistake.” Eddie says quietly. “I knew it was risky. Hen, I just- I was so angry. And the money, I-I could pay for extra therapy for Chris. He’s been struggling since Shannon, and the tsunami, and Buck-“

“And you nearly died.” She says shortly. “And left your son with zero parents.” 

Eddie bows his head. He figured as much. Hen continues with her tirade, and Eddie lets her without a noise of protest. He deserves it. 

* * *

“Your face broke.” Chim says bluntly. Behind him, Bobby snorts and shoves his shoulder. 

“That’s why I still can’t breath?” Eddie asks. 

“No,” Bobby says. “That’s because he crushed your nose in. Broke off a portion of your nasal bridge. You had fluid leaking out.”

Eddie’s mouth goes dry. 

“Fluid?” He asks. He doesn’t really want to know the answer, isn’t sure why he asked. 

Chim nods. 

“Yeah, Cerebrospinal. I think they placed a stent to drain it after the nose reconstruction. By the way, you were pretty well taken care of before we got there, propped up, someone had cleared your airways. Was there, like, an EMT on scene?” 

Eddie thinks about Lena, legs swinging, beer in hand. 

“I don’t know.” He says firmly. “I’m just glad someone did.” 

“Yeah,” Chim sighs. “Now I’m only the most handsome guy at the station temporarily.”

Eddie’s about to laugh, say, _what about Buck?_ But that’s a weird thing to say about your estranged, very male best friend. He glances at the chair next to his bed, still empty. 

“Don’t get used to it, Chim.” He retorts. 

Chim says his goodbyes and heads out, and Bobby sticks around for a moment. Eddie knows what’s coming, but it doesn’t make it easier to hear. 

“If you get involved with that shit again, you’re done.” Bobby says. Eddie looks straight ahead as a cold mass settles in his stomach. 

“Yes, sir,” He says. 

“Eddie.” Bobby says. His tone isn’t exactly warm, but it’s closer to the equator than “I’m about to fire you”, so Eddie looks up and meets his eyes. “You scared the hell out of me. Your son could have lost you, we could have lost you. Buck could have lost you. This easily could have turned out very differently.” 

Eddie swallows. 

“I know.” he says thickly. “It won’t happen again.” 

“Good.” Bobby says, and stands up, clapping him gently on the shoulder. “I’m scheduling you with Frank. You’re not returning to work until you have a psych eval, two sessions with him, and he provides me with proof that you’ve set up regular appointments.”

Eddie nods, Bobby leaves, and he stares across the room at the mirror on the wall above the sink, where he can barely make out someone’s face, swollen black and blue, wrapped in gauze. 

He glances at the empty chair again. 

* * *

He has plenty of time to think about his actions as the days blend together, marked only by the changing of his bandages, the way the pain in his face floats between an ache dulled by narcotics to pressure so acute he’s sure his eyes are about to bulge out of his head. They’re keeping him until they're sure that a hematoma isn’t about to destroy his nose more than it already has and that the fluid has drains out into his stomach completely without infection. 

By the fourth day, Eddie thinks he’s about to jump in the ring again. Athena comes by, takes his statement. Eddie just says he got into a fight, didn’t know the guy’s name, can’t describe him. It’s really not his fault. 

He’s been there before, seeing red and unable to stop himself from the aggression, the relief, of just hitting as hard as you can. 

Athena raises an eyebrow. Eddie just looks down. 

* * *

He doesn’t want Chris to see him until the swelling is down, so he talks to him on the phone, tells him he hit his nose, that’s why he sounds so silly, and that he loves him, he’ll be home soon. The usual suspects drop by as much as they can, but they’ve got work and families to take care of.

Except Buck. Hen tells him Buck says he hopes he feels better, and Eddie averts his eyes from her warm, knowing gaze. 

  
He knows he’s still mad at him. There’s still a spark of anger in his stomach, whenever someone mentions the lawsuit. But another part of him, the part that’s drugged out and about a thousand times more vulnerable than Eddie would usually allow, just desperately wants his best friend back. Wants him to stick his head in the hospital door, big grin taking up his whole face, and tell him off for being so stupid. He wants Buck to bound in with smuggled food, put his feet on Eddie’s bed, chatter about stupid shit to fill the expanding silence of a hospital room. 

But he doesn’t come, and Eddie just wakes up at 3 AM with a small, lingering thought about what would have happened if no one had called 911 after the fight. 

* * *

  
“DADDY!” 

Eddie looks up from his tablet in surprise, and sees his son crutching towards his bed, a megawatt smile on his face. 

  
“Chris?” 

Chris throws his arms around him, and Eddie holds on tight, pulling him up to sit on the side of the bed. Chris pulls back and studies him over the rim of his glasses, and Eddie smiles fondly and pushes them back onto his nose. 

“You look bad,” Chris says matter-of-factly. “And you still sound funny.” 

“Aw, thanks buddy, I missed you too.” Eddie teases. “What are you doing here?” 

He looks up. Abuela and Pepa haven’t come in the door after him. 

“I missed you.” Chris says. “I know you wanted to wait till you didn't look scary, but it’s not _that bad.”_ For emphasis, Chris gestures at his own face, and crosses his arms over his chest. 

Eddie wants to laugh, knows it’ll hurt. His mannerisms are so exaggerated, so familiar. He squeezes his son closer to his side. Chris starts chattering about school, an upcoming field trip, before it strikes Eddie to ask. 

“Chris,” He interrupts. “How did you get here?” 

Chris blinks, looks up at him like it’s obvious. 

“Bucky,” He says, and glances at the door. 

Eddie stills. 

“Buck brought you?” He asks quietly. 

“Yeah?” Chris says. “Since he’s been picking me up from school and stuff, I just asked him to come here instead of Bisabuela’s house.” 

“He’s been picking you up from school?” 

Chris squirms in his grasp, sighs dramatically. 

“Yes, Daddy! Anyways, about the aquarium-” 

Eddie stares at the half-open door as Chris talks about tiger sharks, and notices familiar feet sticking out. Pristine white sneakers, one pair of a million, dark jeans, exceptionally long legs. 

“Buck.” He calls out. 

The feet startle, get up, and Buck appears in the doorway. His eyes are downcast, like he’s embarrassed at being caught. 

“Hi,” he says. “I’m sorry, I just, Chris really missed you, I’ll take him to Pepa’s-” 

“Buck.” Eddie says again. 

Buck bites his lip. 

“You’ve been picking up my son from school?” 

Buck nods. Doesn’t make eye contact. 

“Pepa needed help, since Carla’s out of state, getting him to PT and speech therapy. I-I can ask Hen, if you don’t want me to do it,” 

Christ, Buck is still there for him, even when they’ve been fighting. That’s it. This has gone on long enough. 

“We’re not even talking,” Eddie says. 

Buck flinches like he’s been hit. 

“I-I know,” He stutters miserably. “But Chris, he’s needed help. It’s fine, I’ll stop, I get it.” 

“Get what?” Maybe it’s the drugs talking, but he doesn’t fully understand what Buck is talking about. 

“I fu-” Buck glances at Chris,who’s now engrossed in a video on Eddie’s tablet. “-messed it up, with the lawsuit. I should have seen that you were struggling and I didn’t. I get it. I’ll back away.”

Buck turns, as if he’s about to leave. Eddie’s about to scream in frustration. 

“Buck, come here.” Eddie says, as gently as he can with a packed nose and the sore throat from Satan himself. 

Buck stills, turns around, moves to Eddie’s bedside. 

“I don’t care about the lawsuit.” Eddie says. “Besides, with the street- the accident, I think we’re even now, huh?” 

Buck’s face goes through a range of emotions. Eddie both loves and is terrified about the fact that his best friend wears his heart on his sleeve, where anyone can see it, anyone can damage it, but _damn_ if it’s not useful at times. 

He finally seems to land on relief. And then, anger. 

“What were you thinking, Eds?” He hisses low, as if that will stop Chris from hearing him. “It was so dangerous, you scared me so bad, you should have seen it-” 

“Wait,” Eddie interrupts. “You were there?” 

“Yeah? Once you got off-shift Cap needed an extra hand. We responded to you.” 

Eddie winces. There was no way he looked good. He thinks about the truck, Buck pinned, how every cell in his body was screaming in sync with Buck. 

“I’m sorry.” He says quietly, looks down at the bed. 

“Hey,” Buck says gently, and suddenly there’s a large, calloused hand enveloping his. “You’ve been struggling. Frank?” 

Eddie nods. “Yeah. I have to start going regularly.”

Buck looks relieved, and squeezes his hand tight. 

“We can go together. Date night.” He teases. 

Eddie laughs, really laughs, for the first time in a long time, and doesn't even mind the resulting pain. 

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too.” Buck says. 

“I know.” Eddie squeezes his hand this time. “You’ve been sorry for a while. I was just too hard-headed to see it.” 

Buck dips his head down. Eddie can see he’s crying, and Buck doesn’t make much effort to hide it. 

“Well, thank God for that, huh?” Buck gently runs a finger on the side of his face, where the gauze is wrapped tight. “Otherwise, we’d have a whole different host of problems.” 

“Daddy says he has a really thick skull.” Chris pipes up absently. “He said that last week.” 

Buck laughs, and sweeps Chris off the bed in a fluid, practiced motion, settling him on his hip. 

“He definitely does, little man.” Buck says seriously. “What do you say we go get your dad some dinner, let him rest while we go, and then we can watch a movie together before you go home?” 

Chris seems to consider it for a moment, and then sticks his hand out at Buck.

“Deal,” He says solemnly. Buck mimics his serious expression and shakes his hand.  
“Dinner and a movie it is.” He says, then glances at Eddie. “Rest. I’ll get you some soup. We’ll be back soon. 

Eddie smiles softly as he watches them walk out together, arguing about what restaurant to get carry-out from, and his heart feels lighter than it has in months. 


End file.
